A SWIFT end to the Ukraine war on Russian terms would fill many governments with a sense of loss. In much of western Europe and beyond, a deal that rewarded Russia for its aggression—exchanging a ceasefire for vast swathes of Ukrainian territory, for instance, or a pledge that Ukraine will never join NATO or any other Western alliance—would feel like appeasement, not peacemaking. A pillar of the post-second-world-war order, involving a refusal to see borders redrawn by force, would have fallen.
The Economist
